Allison Lee/Houston Public Media
Piles of trash line a Houston-area street in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The city of Houston’s solid waste department delayed a shift of its heavy trash pickup program from scheduled routes to an on-demand service this week.
Initially slated to take effect on Monday, the on-demand service “has been placed on hold until further notice,” department director Larius Hassen told Houston Public Media in a statement. A spokesperson for the department did not answer follow-up questions seeking more details.
Last month, Hassen told the city council the monthly schedule “was not suitable at a city-wide scale.”
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“Crews are driving every street whether trash was set out or not,” he said. “Delays and backlogs impact neighborhoods, and residents ask for more predictability and accountability.”
Under the on-demand program, households would request up to four pickups per year instead of placing heavy trash on the curb once a month.
The department is still working to implement on-demand heavy trash service, Mayor John Whitmire told Houston TV station KHOU this week. He said department leadership is “putting resources in the field, testing the calling system.”
“We want to do it right instead of quick,” Whitmire said.
The delay came as the city’s 311 center saw a spike in service requests for missed heavy trash service. Over the past four weeks, the center reported 2,617 service requests for missed heavy trash pickup — up from 1,210 over the same time period in 2025.
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A spokesperson for Whitmire described the 311 center’s figures as “not accurate.”
“These are requests for service that often include duplicate phone calls to 311 and do not reflect the amount of work completed,” Whitmire’s spokesperson wrote. “There are far fewer people today waiting for service compared to last year.”
Whitmire, the spokesperson added, “has made historic investments in the department for vehicles, equipment and manpower.”
Under the administration’s budget approved by the city council last year, the department’s annual allocation was slashed by about $5.9 million. The cut came after Whitmire’s early retirement incentive program took more than a dozen workers off solid waste pickup service.
According to internal payrolls obtained by Houston Public Media, the department’s workforce shrank last year from 435 in January to 395 by October. The records showed 16 of the 40 staffers who took early retirement buyouts worked as truck drivers or operators.
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
A newly purchased recycling truck unloads at the city’s recycling plant in late September.
Since then, the department received infusions of cash and equipment. In July and August, the city council approved about $26 million for the purchase of 62 new trucks. With many of the new trucks serving recycling routes, 311 service requests for that service have ticked down to 4,180 requests over the last 12 weeks, compared to 7,201 over the same period in 2025.
Council member Julian Ramirez said he’s optimistic about the department’s progress.
“Some good things have been the acquisition of trucks at a good price,” Ramirez said, “but they continue to struggle meeting the demands of the service area with the resources and organization that they have. You know, they’ve had some organizational challenges. They’re trying to work through that, but it’s a process, obviously.”
Heavy trash service delays are a “city-wide problem,” council member Amy Peck said.
“What we’re doing right now clearly isn’t working, so I welcome new ideas,” like an on-demand program, Peck said. “Can’t get much worse than it is now.”